Bringing it Back to Beyond the Beach 2024-Raquel Seville

In this last segment of Bringing it Back to Beyond the Beach, where we catch up with attendees of our 2024 Beyond the Beach conference in Montego Bay, Jamaica, we spoke to Jamaican tech entrepreneur and author Raquel Seville. Raquel is founder and CEO of Dataffluent, a research and data science company focused on financial insights and modeling for publicly traded entities in developing and emerging markets. Raquel is also the author of SAP OpenUI5 for Mobile BI and Analytics, which is available on Amazon. Raquel is truly a veteran of the Jamaican tech scene, as she has been working with massive volumes of structured and unstructured data for over a decade in fast-paced, complex and demanding multinational companies, leveraging her strong background in telecommunications.

How did you find out about Beyond the Beach and why did you decide to attend? 

I found out about BTB from Ingrid Riley—she’s a really good friend of mine. I found out about the first BTB that happened last year but I wasn’t able to attend that one, I think I was traveling. I ended up pitching at Beyond the Beach, so that was one of my main reasons for attending, in terms of wanting to connect with the investor community, the other entrepreneurs that were there, and of course just general attendees as well—but more so persons who can help us on the journey of helping us with what we’re trying to do.

Did you have any expectations coming into the conference, especially how Beyond the Beach compared to other tech conferences in Jamaica?

In terms of expectations, I would definitely say having attended tech conferences not only locally but also internationally, I would say my expectations were around having a more curated space—-because I know that this was [meant to be] a much more focused conference. So, a more curated space where you can directly connect with people who are either investors, or entrepreneurs, or persons on a particular journey—we can end up collaborating on ideas or just having good networking and conversations. My overall expectation was to be connected directly with those people without a lot of the fluff you get at other conferences, where you’re not really in the room with the right people. So I expected to be in the room with the right people that can help from a startup perspective, because that’s the stage that we’re at now—trying to build out, trying to network, trying to connect into different communities.

Do you feel that your expectations were met?

Definitely, my expectations were met. It definitely was a curated space with investors, with persons who knew about startups, persons who knew about building communities, persons who knew about all the different things we’re looking to do as well as other entrepreneurs who were on their own journeys.

What would you say were your most memorable moments from Beyond the Beach?

Pitching was good; pitching was definitely memorable for me; and getting feedback on the pitch from persons was valuable as well. I think it was also memorable in terms of the conversations—there was an interview that was done with Melissa [Pegus?] who interviewed Ingrid [Riley], like a fireside chat, that was actually really good. Also, Melissa Pegus’s presentation about entrepreneurship and why she is bullish on the Caribbean, on Jamaica, that was really, really nice, because she had some insights and some data points, and for me being like a data scientist—seeing those data points that she pulled into her presentation, those were the things that stood out to me. And of course on that dinner, that was a really, really great moment to just connect with everyone, relax a little bit, dance, have fun, eating some good food.

Can you walk me through your experience pitching at Beyond the Beach?

There were four of us and I was four of four—overall, my experience was good. The entrepreneurs who went before me were also really good as well. I think it started with a woman and ended with a woman, so the men were sandwiched between two women doing pitches, so that was an interesting experience to have that balance as well it was a really male dominated space, it’s mostly men pitching their companies, so it was interesting having that balance, with two female entrepreneurs and two male entrepreneurs pitching, I loved that. The other side of it was just being able to go through the pitch and also getting the input after the event—persons came up saying ‘hey, I love this, how can I support? What do you need?” Which I think is just very great to have that kind of community who will be able to reach out and help you, or even just offer the help. You don’t always get that [at other conferences]. Persons may just be like ‘good for you’ and move on, and not necessarily offer the help to you; I thought that was a really good experience.

Do you feel you made any lasting connections from Beyond the Beach?

Yes, I actually did make some connections. I’ve made some connections with entrepreneurs who are on similar journeys, who are local entrepreneurs doing great things. Beyond that it was solidifying some of the existing connections—I knew Cherie [Williams] from before, I knew Ingrid [Riley] from before—it’s always great to see each other and see what each other is doing, everyone is usually off, busy doing their own thing. It was a great way to solidify the existing respect we had for each other; because it’s not an easy journey. Interested in being a part of the next Beyond the Beach? 

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